Many books are provided with pockets structurally incorporated into the book for receiving supplements to the book. These pockets frequently are incorporated into books used in the legal profession, the insurance industry or the travel industry to receive supplements or updates that may be required between successive printings of the primary volume of the work. The supplements often become outdated and must be replaced with new supplements. In other situations, the pockets will be used to retain a planar article that the user of the book will periodically remove for reference. For example, the pocket may be used to store a map, a reference chart, or the like that relates to the subject matter presented in the book and that for convenience must be separable from the book. In still other situations, the pocket will be provided for the user of the book to store note sheets therein.
In all of the above described situations, it is important for the pocket to be structurally secure and to enable easy and frequent insertion and removal of the supplement. It is also important that the pocket be constructed to enable complete insertion of the supplement, thereby avoiding having a portion of the supplement extend beyond the periphery of the book. Furthermore, it is important that the pocket construction be of relatively low cost.
The prior art includes pockets defining a generally rectangular or trapezoidal sheet of material attached on three sides to the front or rear cover of the book. More particularly, this version of the prior art pocket defines a planar sheet of material attached to the inside of the cover adjacent the top and bottom edges of the cover and adjacent the edge thereof furthest from the binding. The remaining edge of this sheet is free from the cover to define the opening of the pocket into which the supplement may be placed. Although this type of pocket is widely used and is generally considered acceptable for most purposes, it is expensive to manufacture. Furthermore, this type of pocket is not well suited for retaining thick supplements, and can readily be damaged or destroyed if an attempt is made to insert a thick supplement therein. Furthermore, this construction enables only a single pocket in the front and/or a single pocket in the back.
Attempts have been made to attach to the binding of a book a pocket formed from a single sheet of paperboard material. More particularly, this single sheet of paperboard material would include front and back support flaps articulated to one another along a fold line and front and back retaining flaps articulated respectively to the front and back support flaps along fold lines extending generally parallel to the articulation between the front and back support flaps. The front retaining flap is further adhesively connected to the front support flap along an edge of the front retaining flap extending from the articulation to the front support flap. Thus, a pocket would be defined between the front retaining flap and the front support flap by the articulation therebetween and by the adhesive connection. In a similar manner, the rear retaining flap would be adhesively connected to the rear support flap along an edge of the rear retaining flap extending from the articulation to the rear support flap. Thus, a second pocket would be defined between the rear retaining flap and the rear support flap by the articulation therebetween and the adhesive attachment described above. This folded sheet of paperboard material would then be bound into the book along the articulation between the front and rear support flaps. The attachment to the book could be either by sewing or gluing depending upon the construction of the remainder of the book.
The attempts to produce the above described pocket have demonstrated a significant cost advantage over other prior art pocket constructions. However, this pocket construction proved functionally unacceptable in many situations because of the tendency of the glue to spread and thereby alter the size of one or both pockets. More particularly, when the front and rear retaining sheets were urged respectively against the front and rear support sheets, the adhesive would spread uncontrollably away from the edges intended to be adhesively attached. Thus, in many situations, the supplement could not be fully seated into the pocket and would extend beyond the boundaries of book. Attempts to force the supplement fully into the pocket would rip the paperboard material rendering the pocket entirely unusable.
In view of the above, it is an object of the subject invention to provide a pocket for books.
It is another object of the subject invention to provide a pocket for books that can be manufactured inexpensively and incorporated easily into the book.
It is an additional object of the subject invention provide a pocket for books that will reliably insure consistent dimensions for the pocket.
Another object of the subject invention is to provide a pocket for books that will enable supplements to be readily inserted into and removed from the pocket.
It is still another object of the subject invention to provide a pair of pockets formed from a single sheet of paperboard material for incorporation into a book.